by Linda Ellen
“You’re the oldest,” Vivian stated the obvious, trying to concentrate on his words when her whole body was acutely aware of his every move, the warmth of his chest, his thigh pressed against hers, the sound of his voice, the touch of his skin as his hand caressed hers…
“Yep. I’m the odd one. The rest of my family has medium brown hair and either brown or hazel eyes, but I’ve got dark hair and blue eyes.” He paused for a moment as a look of something like pain flitted across his features before he masked it and went on. “Pop used to tease Mom that she’d had a fling with a traveling salesman and I was the result.”
“Goodness!” Vivian gasped, but when he flashed those blue eyes at her, his lips pulled up in a half grin.
“He was kidding. They used to tease each other all the time.”
“Used to? Do you mean they are…” she faltered, not wishing to ask if his parents were dead.
“Oh, I guess they still do. I don’t see them much anymore.” He shrugged, let go of her hand, and for the first time that evening, he took off his peaked cap and leaned forward a bit to place it on one of the tables. Then, he reached up to run his hand over his hair and tug at his collar and tie.
Stealing a look at her, he smiled as if he were a bit embarrassed. “Mind if I take off my jacket?”
She shrugged. “Not at all. I imagine you’re a trifle warm in it…”
“Yeah, but, I didn’t want you to think I was, well…planning on trying something,” he explained. He grinned as he watched the meaning of his words dawn on her and she blushed a bit and looked down at her hands once again in her lap. Gene leaned forward and removed his jacket, tossing it on the couch next to him, and then sat back, his arm once again behind her shoulders.
“That’s better. Now…where was I?”
“Your parents used to tease one another,” she prompted.
“Oh yeah. So…when I was nineteen, I hopped a bus and came to Louisville to visit my aunt and uncle, and got caught up in the big Flood.”
“Oh my! We heard all about it, but it didn’t reach where we lived. Was it as bad as they said? My father wouldn’t let mother or I go anywhere near what he termed ‘that filthy downtown floodwater’…”
“You bet it was bad. But I got put on a rescue boat team with some pretty good fellas. We saved more people out of our rescue station than any other,” he boasted, smiling at her appropriately impressed expression. “Plus we stuck around, helping to bring food to those who stayed for the duration out of fear of looters. After that, I bounced around a bit, joined the CCC’s, and stayed in after my hitch to become a foreman at several camps in Illinois. Then, the war started. I got called up and they sent me to Knox. I’m twenty-five, and I’m a staff sergeant, or more specifically, a motor sergeant, over one of the motor pools for the 1st Armored Division.”
She smiled at him as he stopped and just gazed into her eyes, so deeply that she looked away and drew in a breath, smoothing her hair a bit. Oh my goodness…I’ve got to get hold of myself or he’ll think I’m an Able Grable on the prowl for a man!
He cleared his throat. “So, that’s who Sgt. Eugene Banks is. Now, who is Vivian Powell?”
She stared back into those eyes that seemed to look straight into her soul and drew her lip between her teeth with a soft laugh. “Oh, I’m afraid Vivian hasn’t led such a colorful life as Sgt. Banks. Let’s see…I’m an only child, I grew up in the house on Cooper Chapel Road where I still live with my parents…”
“That’s in Okolona, right?”
“Yes, it is.” She gave a nod. “Um…I went to school in Okolona and graduated, I got a job right out of high school at a bank downtown on Fifth, where I’m a teller, and I turned twenty-one last December.” Thinking her life sounded boring compared to his, she added with a small, self-conscious shrug, “That’s it.”
His eyes seemed to pierce into hers, as if he suspected there was something she wasn’t telling him. “That’s it? No…boyfriend…fiancé?”
She gasped. “No, of course not! Would I be sitting here alone with you if there were?”
He grinned, obviously relieved and pleased. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”
She hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not to mention it, then added quietly, “There was a boyfriend…his name was Walter. He…well, let’s just say, that didn’t work out.”
“Mmm,” Gene hummed deeply, leaning a bit to touch his forehead to her temple. “I’d say that guy must have been an idiot to let you get away.”
“I agree,” she quipped, and they both chuckled. “So…what exactly does a motor sergeant do?”
“Well, let’s see…the book says that a motor sergeant is a Maintenance Platoon Sergeant of an Engineer Support Company assigned to an Engineer Battalion. He is responsible for the overall management of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance of wheeled, ground support, and construction related equipment. Also, he is responsible for the tools, equipment, and facilities, and for the management, supervision, training, professional development, health and welfare of five NCO’s and ten soldiers in his unit.”
“My goodness, that sounds like a lot!” Vivian exuberated breathlessly, more than a little impressed. Gene just shrugged, characteristically humble.
“It has its ups and downs.”
She sat huddled with him, contented, fingering the emblems and decorations on his uniform as he quietly explained what each one was…arm-of-service, branch-of-service, unit insignia, marksmanship, his hash marks or rank stripes, his staff sergeant chevrons…
After a while, she debated over voicing her next question, but then finally decided to as it was important to her. Clearing her throat, she ventured, “Are you a believer, Sgt. Banks?”
“Yes. Yes, I am, Miss Powell,” he responded with firm, steady conviction, and with no hesitation.
She smiled in relief of the one aspect that could have driven a wedge between them. “Good. So am I, Sergeant.”
“I figured as much,” he smiled back.
They sat together for a few more minutes, just enjoying one another’s company, listening to the faint strains of the music starting up again directly below, and softly sharing words of praise for Johnny Burkhart and his band. She felt a twinge of guilt that she wasn’t downstairs attending to her duties.
Finally, Vivian turned her head. Her eyes met his only inches away as she leaned back against his arm. She let her gaze drop to his lips, so smooth and utterly kissable, and then back to his eyes again.
Gene smiled and whispered, “Whatcha thinkin’, Miss Vivian Powell?”
A memory of Walter’s voice from the past, sneering that she was a prude, decided at that moment to rear its ugly head. Suddenly, a rebellious boldness came over Vivian, and she turned toward Gene a little more, touched the material of his shirt above his heart, and admitted gently, “I was just wondering, Sgt. Banks…what it would be like to kiss you.”
His eyes flared in surprised reaction, and then those lips of his curved into a very sexy smile. “Mmm, is that right, Miss Powell?”
“That’s right.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously.
He let out a soft snicker as his eyes sparkled in response. “Well, I think I can provide the answer to that mystery.”
Their connection held for a few moments as their awareness of one another skyrocketed, and then Gene reached up to touch her chin with the tips of his fingers and she turned her body a bit more into the curve of his. He gently leaned in and joined their lips.
The effect was immediate and powerful – more so than either had expected. Breaths hitched as sparks flashed, fireworks exploded, and hearts galloped like racehorses on Derby Day.
Her pulse thudded in her ears and she melted into his embrace as his lips skillfully moved over hers, warmly, and oh so thoroughly.
It was a kiss of a lifetime.
It was a kiss neither of them would ever forget.
CHAPTER 5
Gene lay on his bed, hands under his head, fingers linked, and staring u
p at the ceiling only faintly illuminated by a bit of moonlight shining in the window. He turned his head and picked up his watch from the bedside table. 2:43 am.
He couldn’t go to sleep. A certain honey-eyed girl wouldn’t leave his brain, or his body for that matter, alone.
Eugene Banks was no innocent. He’d been on lots of dates, with lots of different…types…of girls. He dated in high school. He had gone with the other enlistees when they all wanted to blow off a little steam, into the small towns near the CCC camps and hung out with the local girls. He’d even had a couple of dates since he’d been stationed at Knox. But never had anything happened to him like meeting Miss Vivian Powell. One look – one look – from her practically knocked him off his feet! And to think…she’s been right here, in Louisville, practically my whole life and I never met her before.
Drawing in a deep breath, he blew it out slowly and shook his head in amazement.
But he had a problem. She was a junior hostess at the service club and one of the club’s strictest rules was the hostesses were not allowed to date the soldiers. He understood the reason – if all of their girls started dating the soldiers they met there and the soldiers became steady beaus, said beaus would not want to come to the club and watch their girls dancing with other servicemen for three hours. Said girls would then no longer be junior hostesses, the beaus would insist. No-sir-ee. Gene knew first hand how miserable it was to be relegated to the sidelines, and Vivian wasn’t even officially his girl!
But the memory of their kiss…as his best friend from his CCC days used to say, shut my mouth and beat me daddy eight to the bar…the warmth of her lips, the little sighs and the softness of her body against his, the whole rightness of the two of them together. It had been like the best dream a guy could ever have, totally unreal…and totally real.
He cringed now as he remembered what had interrupted their kiss. Warden Warren. She must be part bloodhound, because she had sure sniffed out where one of her new girls was “resting”, and boy howdy, did it hit the fan. Poor Viv, she had been so embarrassed to be caught red-handed, or more to the point, red-lipped, with a soldier on her first night as a hostess. Miss Warren sure lit into her.
She had practically dragged Vivian out of the room and down to the dance hall, and never took her eyes off of her the rest of the evening – well, at least the last forty minutes until the dance was over. Then, the old broad had made sure Viv was in the group as the new girls were ushered out the door and across the hall for an evaluation of their first evening as hostesses. Viv had cast a quick glance at him, and that was the last he had seen of her.
After waiting around and not catching a glimpse of her again, he had belatedly realized he needed to put in for a bunk in the sleeping quarters on the third floor of the USO club – but no such luck. He’d waited too long and every bunk was spoken for. There was nothing left to do but take a jog outside and hope he wasn’t too late to catch the bus heading back to the base. He’d made it with seconds to spare – it was pulling away from the curb and he’d had to flag it down!
Now, here he was, stewing in his own juices and racking his brain to figure out what he was going to do about this situation with Vivian Powell.
What he didn’t know was if she had been kicked out – or would continue her duties as one of Louisville Service Club’s Junior Hostesses.
If she didn’t…how would he see her again?
Monday at noon…
“What’ll it be, ladies?” the big-boned waitress asked as Vivian and Mary June climbed up onto the last two open stools at Tafel Drug Store’s lunch counter.
“Hey Gerti. I’ll have a hot roast beef sandwich and a large iced tea, please,” Vivian responded as Mary June scanned the menu on the wall past the woman’s head. Gertrude nodded as she wrote down Vivian’s order on the pad in her hands, and then raised her eyes to other girl. The woman waited, a tiny bit of aggravation showing on her face. “Be right there!” she called out to a man on the other end that waved a hand trying to get her attention.
“Give me a…hamburger with everything but onions…and a chocolate malt,” Mary June finally told the harried server.
The woman scratched out the order and then turned to pin it to the revolving rack as she bent a bit to call to the cook back in the kitchen, “Gimme one bossy on a board, and then burn one, drag it through the garden and hold the rose!”
“Comin’ right up!” came the response.
As the woman moved back down the counter to take care of other customers, Mary June watched her go, and then turned back to her companion. “She always cracks me up.”
“Yeah,” Vivian replied, but was obviously pre-occupied.
“Hey – you’ve been walking around all morning with your head in a cloud. What’s up? What was Miss Warren giving you the business about Saturday night? I was so aggravated that we couldn’t get on the same bus going home because I was dying to ask…and who was that soldier I saw you going upstairs with…and why the heck did you go up there with him?” the girl paused for a breath after her rapid-fire delivery.
Vivian picked up the tall glass of ice tea that the waitress placed in front of her and took a sip from the straw. She glanced around, trying hard not to simply blurt out the answers to the questions and confide in her friend – which was what she had been dying to do all weekend. They had both hurried in to work that morning with not a minute to spare for conversation. Usually able to chat during the bus ride to the bank, wouldn’t you know, they had been stuck at either ends of the bus for the entire route and a traffic jam had caused it to get to their stop ten minutes later than scheduled.
Finally, she couldn’t hold back anymore. She had to tell her best friend about her blue-eyed sergeant. “Oh Mary June! What a night!” she exclaimed. “Miss Warren saw me talking to him…once next to the refreshment counter…and once in a reading room upstairs. We went up there to find a quiet place to just talk. His name is Gene Banks. He’s a sergeant, and he’s stationed out at Knox.”
Mary June reached for her milkshake and took a long draw from it, never taking her eyes from her friend. “Aaaaand,” she prompted.
Vivian peered her way, and couldn’t hold back the smile that overtook her face. “Oh Mary! I can’t believe something like this has happened – to me!”
“Like what?” Mary June practically screeched, before covering her mouth with her fingers to stifle a giggle. “Viv – spill it!”
“I…I think I’m in love,” Vivian squeaked, a blush coloring her face as her best friend’s eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open. “I’ve never felt anything like that with a guy before – and certainly not with Walter,” she added, suppressing a shudder. “It’s like something out of a movie – when our eyes met…I felt tingles all over!” she stopped for a moment and shrugged self-consciously. “Listen to me, I sound wacky, I know, but…”
“Viv!” Mary June squealed. “Tell me everything!”
The waitress brought their lunches at that moment, giving both girls the “eye” as she laid down the plates. The friends waited until she moved on, and then for the next few minutes, between bites, and mindful of the clock on the wall, Vivian told her friend the dreamy details of her encounters with the handsome sergeant – although she played down the particulars of the kiss. Still, the other girl could barely keep her voice down in her reactions.
“Oh honey, I’m so jealous. I’ve been going to the dances for over a year hoping to meet my Mr. Right, and only managed to get my feet black and blue from dead hoofers who can’t dance. You – on your first night there – meet the soldier of every girl’s dreams!”
Vivian wiped her mouth on her napkin and then smiled dreamily. “I know…it doesn’t seem real – and yet somehow…it’s the realest thing that’s ever happened to me.” She paused and looked her friend in the eye. “If that makes any sense,” she laughed.
“It does to me, honey,” Mary June agreed.
“And to think…I almost didn’t go to the dance. He s
aid he usually doesn’t have a good time at them, and on several he had just stayed upstairs playing pool with the fellows.”
“So…is he coming back for the next dance?”
“I don’t know…once Miss Warren found us upstairs and dragged me away from him,” at that, she paused again and felt another blush suffuse her face, “we didn’t have time for any parting words – and she wouldn’t let me get anywhere near him for the rest of the dance. Then when she was herding all of us new girls into the room for our ‘evaluations’, I only caught a glimpse of him…”
“What did she say? I mean she didn’t kick you out, did she?” Mary June asked worriedly.
“She gave me a stern warning – which was a bit embarrassing in front of the other girls – and lectured all of us about the rule sheet we had signed and why the rules are important.” Vivian met her friend’s eyes for a moment before adding, “I understand why the rules are there…but, oh Mary…meeting Gene was the absolute last thing I had expected! Truly, I only joined to help out a worthy cause…”
“Of course you did, sweetie! I know that. But, if you see him again while you’re there, you’d better watch out. A couple of girls got kicked out a few weeks ago for ‘conduct unbecoming a junior hostess’,” she mimicked Miss Warren with a roll of her eyes.
Vivian’s eyes widened for a moment, imagining the shame of that happening to her.
Mary June caught her friend’s worried look and rushed on, “I’m so happy for you! You deserve to meet a swell guy, after all the lies and junk Walter put you through.” With their lunch break nearly over, the girls laid the proper amount of coins on the counter and gathered their things to go back to the bank.
As she turned to head toward the door, Mary June tossed back over her shoulder off-handedly, “I just hope he doesn’t wind up being too good to be true.”